Medion's cheap 17in notebook has basic specs, but should serve as a good general-purpose computer for home or basic business use

Expert Rating

4.00/5

Pros

Reasonably cheap price

Good, albeit low-power, specifications

Good battery life

Cons

Build quality is merely OK, some body flex

Keyboard and trackpad should be bigger

Bottom Line

Medion’s latest bargain laptop is a solid but simple product. It has reasonable specifications, although it shouldn’t be mistaken for a high-performance or gaming machine, and while its build quality isn’t exceptional it’s largely comparable to other budget machines from companies like Acer, HP and Asus. If you’re looking for a cheap notebook while you’re buying your groceries, Medion has you covered.

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The Medion Akoya E7220 has specifications that are at the bottom of the pile when compared against most of the other notebooks that we test here at PC World, but for basic productivity and Web use we think it’s more than adequate. It’s not appropriate if you intend to play any 3D games or use any demanding programs, but for a family’s basic email, Facebook and Web use it will do a perfectly acceptable job. On a price comparison the Medion comes up against the MSI A6200 and soundly beats it, while the near-equal Dell Inspiron 15R is at last $100 more. Included in the Medion's price is a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium Edition, as well as a small range of other software.

The processor used in the Akoya E7220 is a second generation Intel Core i3-2310M. It’s at the bottom of the pecking order for Intel’s current CPUs but still manages to wring out reasonable performance figures. We recorded a time of 1min 21sec for our iTunes test, and the best result for Blender was 57sec. The notebook’s integrated Intel HD graphics helped it to a middling score of 4216 in the 3DMark 06 graphics test — an OK score but representative of the mediocre performance the Akoya E7220 would give in a modern 3D game. You can see how these figures compare to other notebooks we’ve tested this year by looking at our 2011 notebook performance chart.

Medion ships 4GB of DDR3 PC3-10600 RAM in the Akoya E7220, in two 2GB sticks. A screwdriver-savvy user could install up to 8GB (in two 4GB sticks) in the MD 98740 to give it a reasonably cheap performance boost.

The 750GB internal hard drive of the MD 98740 is a Hitachi Travelstar 5K750, running at 5400 RPM. It’s a basic model with only standard performance figures — we recorded write speeds of 41.5 MB/sec in our file transfer test, with CrystalDiskMark returning optimistic read/write speeds of 82.9 and 84.7 MB/sec respectively. There’s plenty of acceptably fast internal storage in the MD 98740 and it’s unlikely many users would need more.

The hard drive of the Akoya E7220 (MD 98740) is audible during operation if you’re in a quiet room. We tested it in the empty PC World offices and found that when loading an application or transferring data it’s possible to hear the clicking of the hard drive’s head moving back and forth. It’s hardly a big deal, but speaks to the basic construction and thin plastic body of the MD 98740.

You can also install a second hard drive in the MD 98740 with nothing more than a jeweller’s screwdriver — there’s an additional hard drive bay hidden behind the notebook’s rear cover and Medion includes an appropriate 2.5in hard drive tray in the bundled accessories, so all you have to do is supply the hard drive.

The screen was particularly good. It is bright and visible from most angles, however heat is an issue, particularly around the Windows button on the front, and on the back where the battery housing is located.

My first impression after unboxing the Q702 is that it is a nice looking unit. Styling is somewhat minimalist but very effective. The tablet part, once detached, has a nice weight, and no buttons or switches are located in awkward or intrusive positions.

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